I started doing genealogy research for my immediate family in 1999 and have continued to work at it off and on since then. Over time I researched my various in-laws, and also did research for a few friends. My database now has 15 families, and I ended up finding links through common ancestors in 12 or 13 of them. Throw in a link or two for royal bloodlines, and we have a nice family hairball. I also knit/crochet, and I think the genealogy hairball rivals any yarn barf I've had to untangle.

My current project (2021) is going through my database to deal with missing documentation, cleaning up errors, removing people/lines proven to be incorrect, and adding new lines as I find them. This is a long-term project since my database is huge. I'm also trying to contribute more to Find a Grave as I more fully document everyone and untangle messes, hoping to help increase the quality of information on Find a Grave. Having more online resources available is making the task easier, and I'm thankful it's all available!

While I am not a professional genealogist, I strive to do professional-level work, seeking out records of all types (birth, marriage, death, church, court, land, census, military, etc.) obituaries and newspaper items, plus any family and county histories and genealogies, professional genealogy periodicals and books, and any other references that I can find. In my "newbie" days 20+ years ago I relied heavily on other family trees for information, but stopped doing that many years ago as I've learned more about genealogy. I do the actual research myself, and now look at other family trees only if I hit a brick wall and want to see what other researchers might have found. When I suggest edits on Find a Grave as part of the work I'm doing in my own database, I have done the research to back up what I'm suggesting and will provide the evidence with my requests. It's part of helping to make Find a Grave one of the best resources possible.